Yugoslavia

A joint letter has been sent to the Chief Prosecutor urging that the amended indictment include charges of rape and other forms of sexual violence perpetrated against women by Bosnian Serb forces under Karadzic’s command.

The anthology bears witness to the anti-war attitudes and activities of women from the Yugoslav geographical space. It is a record of their emotional conflicts and pain, yet, at the same time, a testimonial of their strength and vitality. It treasures every individual story and every emotion. In this respect is follows Simone Weil’s dictum from the year 1943: “In momentous historical events, personal emotions have a significance which has never received proper attention.”

In late eighties, with the
consolidation of nationalism as the state ideology in Serbia, the propaganda
directed against women grew stronger. It is well known that in periods of acute
crisis, economic repression or marked repression, women are called to turn back
to "home and family"; they are referred to as "the angels of the home earth", as
ideal mothers, as faithful wives… Such propaganda, among other things, aims at
postponing or preventing social tensions, outburst of social discontent caused
by mass lay-offs of working men and women.